Benny Imura
Benny Imura is the main protagonist in the series, a somewhat rebelious youth, aged 15. he is the younger brother of Tom Imura, Zombie Bounty hunter. Rot and Ruin In the first installment of the Rot and Ruin series, Benny Imura has just recently turned 15 and is need of finding a job before the town cuts his rations in half. He tries out jobs like being an apprentice locksmith, hand cranked generator engineer, erosion artist, and town watchman, but eventually succumbs and gets an apprenticeship with his older half-brother Tom Imura. Before entering the Rot and Ruin, Benny strongly thinks that killing the walking dead is more of a sport, seeing them only as monsters. He idolizes bounty hunters, mainly Charlie Pink-Eye and The Motor City Hammer. After his visit in the Ruin with Tom, though, his views are completely changed as he sees the walking dead as something that were once human and had a life. When he returns from the Ruin he enters a depressed state and lives mostly to himself. He eventually breaks out of it, and buys zombie cards with his friends Morgie and Chong. In one of the packs he gets the card labeled, "The Lost Girl" and becomes instantly intrigued by the mysterious women. As he tries to figure out her story, he angers Charlie Pink-Eye who attempts to murder him along with killing Jessie Riley and kidnapping Phoenix Riley. Tom and Benny then decide to track down the evil duo of Charlie Pink-Eye and The Motor City Hammer to rescue Phoenix. Out in the Ruin, Tom and Benny grow closer as brothers and Benny gains much more knowledge about the great Rot and Ruin. Eventually they are able to reunite with Phoenix, but Tom is shot and presumed dead by Benny and Phoenix. Benny and Phoenix grow closer and grow a relationship with eachother as Phoenix grieves for her mother, and Benny grieves for his older brother. The next morning the two are almost captured, but are saved by the Lost Girl, Lilah. With her help, they track down Charlie and The Motor City Hammer, destroying their camp and rescueing the kidnapped kids. Charlie and The Motor City Hammer are both killed and Tom returns from the dead helping to destroy the camp and bring Benny, Phoenix and Lilah back to Mountainside safely. Dust and Decay In the second installment of the Rot and Ruin series, Benny mainly struggles to decide why he is heading East with Tom, Phoenix and Lilah. Throughout the beginning of the book he and Phoenix are trained by Tom Imura to survive out in the Rot and Ruin. When they do leave, bringing Chong with them, Benny tries to re-establish the fire of his and Phoenix's romance but quickly learns the females of the group are much stronger and independent than what's seen at first glance. Benny and Lilah have a growing conflict after Benny's best friend Chong runs away after being rejected by Lilah. This conflict results in a splitting of the group leaving Benny and Phoenix alone by themselves. They continue towards the Waypoint mark, the hotel near Yosemite Park. When they arrive, they are captured and forced to fight in the zombie pits together. Benny makes it out alive along with Phoenix and unites with the fellow "good" bounty hunters in taking down Gameland for good. They escape, but not without a casualty. This casualty rips apart Benny's emotions and he kills the villian Preacher Jack. He is also surprised when the person he cared about so much, did not reanimate as a zombie. Flesh and Bone In the third installment of the Rot and Ruin series, Benny adapts with his new life headed east to uncover the secrets beyond the Rocky Mountains. Reality is cruel as he meets up with the evil Mother Rose, and falls into a trench as a horde of zombies follows him. In the trench he saves a little girl named Eve, who is part of another town called Treetops. The gang saves Benny but he loses Tom's katana in the process. Lilah does retrieve the katana for him though. In an altercation with other survivors from Treetops, Benny and the group are thrown into a war against an extremist religous group called The Reapers who's main mission is to wipe out the human population. The group is again split, pairing Phoenix and Benny together again. They find an airplane and search it to find out humanity is still alive and kicking. Multiple times Benny runs into Saint John of the knives and the two instantly grow a distaste for eachother. Benny later makes the first encounter with an "R3" zombie that picks up a stick and bashes him in the head, sending him into a fuzzy state for the rest of the book. Fire and Ash In the fourth installment of the Rot and Ruin series, Benny is fully engaged in the war against the Reapers fighting alongside the great Joe Ledger. He uncovers the secret of the missing scientist with a cure to zombie plague, Monica McReady. He finds the doctor, and ultimately saves Chong's life but in their mission to save the cure doctor, Sanctuary is overrun and Benny fights alongside Phoenix and Lilah to exterminate the Reapers. He is succesful, and kills Saint John of the Knives right hand man Peter ending the battle at Sanctuary. After the battle at Sanctuary, Benny and the crew race home to Mountainside to stop the reaper army from wiping out the 9 towns in California. In a brave and courageous moment, he stops the Reapers with strategic defenses set around the Reapers. The Reaper Army is defeated, and Benny saves Mountainside and renames the zombie infested land "Tomsland". In the Epilogue of the book Benny and Phoenix are shown to have a brewing relationship as they build a new town since Mountainside was ruined.